Posts Tagged ‘contraption’

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But whenever ‘they’ said that, photographer Ignas Kutavicius clearly wasn’t listening. Case in point: he recently decided to take the sublime art of pinhole photography and turn it into a selfie-taking machine… literally.

Soviet photo equipment collector Vladislav Kern recently purchased this crazy camera contraption. Upon first glance, it might look like a 8mm motion picture camera that an ordinary tourist might use, but take a closer look (or open it up) and you’ll see that the design is simply a façade. The device is actually a still camera that exposes 35mm film using a smaller lens on the right side of the body!Read more…

The “Smashing Booth” is a contraption that shatters objects and snaps photographs at the moment of impact. It was created by designer Henrietta Jadin, who created it as part of a school project titled “Breaking Point.” The wooden device catapults an object at the back wall of its box, and a photo is captured by an open shutter, sound sensor (made from an Arduino controller), and strobe.Read more…

Photography enthusiast Kris Robinson used to handhold a flash above his subjects for macro photographs, but then he got tired of doing that and ran out of hands. He then came up with the brilliant idea of making a do-it-yourself contraption that attaches to his flash when it’s mounted to the hotshoe. The light travels down a tube lined with reflective aluminum tape, and is bounced downward onto the subject through a diffused lightbox. For a couple sample shots, see here and here.

P.S. Robinson also offers a tip for shooting macro photos of insects: if you place them into your freezer for a minute or two, they’ll sit nice and still for a while before warming up and scurrying away.

The BeetleCam is a remote controlled car that has a Canon 400D DSLR and two flash units strapped to the top. It’s the brainchild of brothers Will & Matt Burrard-Lucas, award-winning wildlife photographers based in the UK, and allows them to capture some unique photographs of some of Africa’s most dangerous animals.

William tells us,

We are brothers from the UK specialising in wildlife photography. We aim to use teamwork and ingenuity to take unusual shots of wild animals. Recently we embarked on a project to photograph African wildlife from a ground level perspective using a camera mounted on top of a four-wheel drive remote control buggy called BeetleCam. We took BeetleCam to Tanzania and photographed lions, elephants and buffalo with it. The project proved to be a great success and we managed to get some amazing photographs from a unique perspective.

For more photographs from the BeetleCam, and some videos of the cam in action, check out the BeetleCam project page.

Image credits: Photographs by Will & Matt Burrard-Lucas and used with permission

When Instructables member bertus52x11 had his cast removed after breaking his arm, he found that his arm was too weak to handle his DSLR camera. Realizing that those less fortunate might have similar problems with handling heavy equipment, he created a do-it-yourself camera support using PVC pipe that transfers the weight of your camera to your chest.

In addition to allowing people to more easily handle heavy cameras, the chest support also acts as a stabilizer, reducing camera shake in situations where you don’t have a tripod. He writes,

This device can help people with a weak arm or hand, but it can be helpful to people with Parkinson to stabilise the camera. Naturally it can be used for stabilising pocket cameras as well. You can then slim down the design by using smaller (copper) tubing. Once you have chosen for copper, a Steampunk design is never far away. I would like to see that!

If you’re interested in creating such a support for yourself or someone you know, check out the easy-to-follow tutorial on Instructables: